The Chronicles of Spellborn Impressions

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Blasting magic at MMORPG convention. We hope it works.

By Charles Onyett

It's been a while since The Chronicles of Spellborn last made the rounds, but we got another look today, venturing into the Enclave's vibrant realms during a particularly dreary day in San Francisco. According to the developers at Spellborn NV, their main goal with Spellborn, a fantasy based MMO, is to minimize grinding. The experience gleaned from felling random mobs pales in comparison to what's gained from completing quests. More substantial and involving chains of quests will also be implemented to keep players moving through environments and pursuing dynamic objectives. Though we can't say for sure since we didn't get the chance to play, we're sincerely hoping this kind of design shift alleviates the horrible specter of sitting in one spot farming wolves, bears, or other wildlife, while taking brief pauses to wipe away tears of ultimate boredom.

Spellborn tries to further distance itself from the standard MMORPG mold by stripping armor and weaponry of statistics. Modifications, called sigils, can eventually be affixed for bonuses as you level up to the cap of 50, but otherwise aesthetics are the only reason to discriminate between armor pieces. When creating a character of either Human or Daevi racial persuasions, you can slap on a wide variety of stylish armor pieces. Hair styles and facial features can be tweaked, color customized, tattoos inked, and body type determined, all of which are in no way limited by your choice of class. If you wanted, you could create an impossibly buff Human male with heavy plate armor, yet he's a caster. Equally unlikely contrasts can be accomplished with the other class arch-types, rogue and warrior. Once created, you'll be able to go back and reorient your character's appearance in shops littered around the game's towns.

It seems the game world experienced some substantial explosion in the distant past. Only four fragments of land remain floating around the universe, known as Shards, which serve as the home for distinct environments, split up into about five zones or so per Shard. Between each zone is a twisting tapestry of magical flame known as the DeadSpell Storm. You'll need to cross this expanse when traveling between Shards. For the more adventurous types, you can even crew a ship heading out into the DeadSpell to battle monsters unique to that environment and receive unique rewards.

Combat in the game veers from conformity in that you don't auto-target a foe. Instead, you enter into "battle" mode, which enters your avatar into a readied state with weapon drawn and movement speed decreased. A reticule pops up on screen showing where your weapon is currently targeted, and you'll have to hover that over the enemy to hit them, infusing combat with more of an action element than systems reliant solely on hotkey tapping until your knuckles shatter. Once bested, enemies sometimes drop busted pieces of armor. These can thereafter be brought before a shopkeep for appraisal, which tells you which components you need to make the item yourself. If your harvesting skills are dedicated enough, you could theoretically don the armor of your enemy, though that would seem to involve the type of grinding for broken armor pieces Spellborn is so intent on eliminating.

Another goal is to rid the MMORPG formula of large scale raids. Spellborn NV swore to us they'd never introduce content or dynamics in this game that require large numbers of players to band together. The act of searching, according to the developers, is a fruitless waste of time. Player groups in Spellborn will be limited to four, and PvE instances as well as Arena PvP will be there to serve as an outlet from the single player campaign. Even solo instances will be in this game, which you can enter every few levels to pick up new skills, such as your first sigil, or first sub-class at level five.

Faction trainers also met Spellborn NV's list of overused and therefore disposable MMORPG conventions. As levels are gained, skills are automatically opened up for you. A limited number can then be chosen to unlock and assigned to a "skill reel," which serves as Spellborn's action bar. The bar is a hexagonal cylinder, its faces reflecting the six tiers of skills available to each class. On each surface can be placed a limited number of skills, and after one skill is used, the reel rotates to the next available skill level. So when you activate a tier one sword smash, the reel rotates to two, where you can activate a whirlwind or something, then will either return to tier one or move on to tier three, then four, and, if unlocked, up to six. This means you need to plot your skill combo strategies vertically across successive skill levels, as opposed to horizontally.

Things get more complicated when you get to the Quarterstone Shard, which houses the PvP arena, guild halls, and oracle. Up to eight can band together and enter the arena, which offers modes like one on one duels, king of the hill, ranked, unranked, tournaments, and a challenge mode where you fight higher ranked opponents for greater reward and risk. World PvP is also an option, though you need to get to underground cavern areas away from Enclave authorities, where you can fight for rare resources.

Guilds offer numerous options for customizations, including a unique instanced guild hall for each group. By improving the status of your guild, you gain the ability to add extra rooms like a guild specific shop where armor emblazoned with the guild insignia can be purchased, as well as a private arena. Designated guild champions can enter the PvP arena on their organization's behalf to battle other guilds. Meeting certain guild specifications will even grant you control over aspects of the public game world, such as draping all surrounding shops in your guild's colors and drawing in a cut of the profits to your guild's coffers, which can then be doled out to members by the guild master or appointed officers.

Eventually, Spellborn NV plans on letting players alter the game world by performing quests in the past. By speaking with the oracle, players can travel to before the time of the great explosion and follow plot threads that, we're assuming, eventually lead to some explanations of why the explosion happened. When it ships in North America sometime in the third quarter of this year, the oracle will still hand out time-travel quests, but your actions won't affect the present time. Six to twelve months after release, this could change. The game's already deep into the beta phase over in Europe, and scheduled for a late second quarter ship date there. We'll have more impressions once we get a chance to play.